Sebastian Vettel gets a new Aussie teammate

Every driver on the F1 grid wanted to replace Mark Webber at Red Bull, but the spot went down under

Sebastian Vettel cannot seem to avoid an Australian team-mate. Ever since he joined Red Bull, Mark Webber has been a sticking point in his racing adventures. The battle between the two has been quite edgy at times, with those definitive clashes on track in Turkey (2010) and Malaysia (2012). Then there was always Brazil (2012) when Webber refused to help Vettel in his championship bid in the final race of the season. Now that Webber is moving away from Formula One come end 2013, Vettel might have been hoping for a friendlier team-mate, perhaps in the guise of his good pal Kimi Raikkonen. But for some unknown reason, perhaps fate, he has yet another Aussie to contend with in Daniel Ricciardo. The 24-year-old moves from Toro Rosso to Red Bull next season, becoming only the second driver to graduate from their young drivers’ program to the senior team after Vettel.

His racing career started with karts, as is the wont of many F1 drivers. Formula Ford beckoned at age fifteen and then came Formula BMW in 2006, after which a scholarship helped him tide over financial challenges. Finishing third in that Asian championship, he moved along further to Formula Renault 2.0 and won the Western European Cup in 2008, which enabled him to zoom over the Red Bull radar.

Backed by the drinks giant now, he started racing with some impressive results, winning six times in British Formula 3. Young Drivers’ tests followed in 2009 and 2010, and he impressed in the latter, even beating Vettel’s pole-time at Abu Dhabi. In 2011, Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s young driver program boss made sure that Ricciardo started gaining some F1 experience, and they financed his drive with HRT in place of Narain Karthikeyan. He made his debut that year at the British Grand Prix in Silverstone, and then in 2012 he was signed to drive for Toro Rosso.

Beating his team-mate became a priority for him, and he showed impressive pace in qualifying compared to Jean-Eric Vergne. Race pace wasn’t a problem either, but he was beaten in terms of finishing. Though this really wasn’t seen as a hindrance as Red Bull showed enough confidence in him by signing him ahead of Raikkonen from the 2014 season onwards.

This is where it gets interesting though: why did Red Bull sign a young upstart for an important season, in which points are at a premium? They could easily have snagged a world champion, a championship contender, and a consistent driver in Raikkonen. But they chose to go in a different direction by investing in the future and youth, probably shaping up for a time if and when Vettel decides to leave.

Even so, Ricciardo will have to affirm his graduation with some rich performances. It is easy to assume that everyone wants to drive for Red Bull. After all, their car is at the top of the class on track and it has been so since 2010. All that needs to be done is to race to the chequered flag, where only a near disaster could put it out of a points-finish; such is the consistency and reliability of their car. Of course, all of this can change come 2014 when new rules come in.

One of the major reasons for signing Ricciardo could be that he will easily play second fiddle to Vettel, who is looking at rewriting history records. Raikkonen might have asked for equal stature and it perhaps proved to be a stumbling block. A rookie, so to say, would have second thoughts about asking for such equality and would have to drive out of his skin to even challenge a proven champion. You’ll recall the last time this happened – in 2007 – when Lewis Hamilton went head-to-head with Fernando Alonso and it all blew up in McLaren’s face. Ricciardo is no Hamilton, that much is apparent. But stranger things have been known to happen in Formula One.

(Chetan Narula is the author of History of Formula One: The Circus comes to India.)